Materials about how to put your legal research into proper legal citation format. Matierials about the importance of the citation format and citation reform to enhance usability and accessibility of the law itself.

But we don't yet seem to have any plans in Minnesota for removing artificial barriers to accessibility of much of Minnesota law - appellate decisions from the Minnesota Supreme Court and Court of Appeals.

How those decisions are identified and published has ripple effects across the entire legal community as well as for citizen access to the law itself."

"The Illinois Supreme Court announced Tuesday a new way of officially citing its cases and those of the Illinois Appellate Court. This new method will eliminate the need to
contractually publish and purchase the official opinions in bound volumes. It will save Illinois taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.

Illinois will join about a dozen other states who already use the new method of case citation. The Supreme Court promulgated the changes in amendments filed Tuesday to Supreme
Court Rule 6 and Rule 23."

...

... The new method of citation goes into effect July 1, 2011. ...

...

In Illinois, Supreme Court and Appellate Court opinions have been available on the judiciary's web site since 1996, but the requirement that official citation be made to printed
reporters has prevented the direct citation of those opinions. ...

These changes direct the Illinois Supreme Court and the Illinois Appellate Court to assign at the time of filing a public-domain case designator number, as well as internal paragraph
numbers to all opinions and Rule 23 orders filed after July 1, 2011."

Select quotes from Jarvis, Robert M., "John B. West: Founder of the West Publishing Company," 50 American Journal of Legal History 1-22 (2010).

See Jarvis' complete article for more about John B. West's business career and life after leaving West Publishing, his later views on universal citation, and his 1909 criticism of the West American Digest System. Advocating an "elastic scheme," he wrote, "The classification of today will be as inadequate in the future as the classification of the past is at this time ...."

"With information technology such as electronic bulletin boards, CD-ROMs and the Internet so readily available and widely used, there is growing interest among courts in a citation form that is both medium neutral and vendor neutral. Such a neutral citation form is known as a universal citation form. The purpose of this memorandum is to highlight the issues a supreme court faces in considering a universal citation form and official electronic opinions and to offer
some suggestions and options. Whether a Supreme Court should adopt such a system is outside the scope of this report." 11 pages.

"Our aim is to provide the organizational infrastructure needed to facilitate the adoption and use of a uniform set of media and vendor neutral citations that can be used for all American court decisions."

Please suggest a new category, a new item for this category, or improved categorization. Tell us about dead and changed links!

We hope you find our Public Edition to be useful.

But we want you to know that our best and most useful material is provided only by subscription./p>

Our Enhanced Subscriber Edition turns you into a far more efficient, more effective user of the vast legal and governmental resources scattered across the Web as well as those that comprise the heart of Minnesota-specific legal and governmental resources and law-practice related knowledge.

Call us or contact us through the site to learn how your firm or organization can put the full power of our Minnesota Law Practice WebSM at your service.

Powered by LawsaurusTM expert support system software from Pritchard Law Webs.